


Helping Hands

by Ydnam



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:11:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ydnam/pseuds/Ydnam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 2x11 "The Outsider"</p>
<p>In which Rumplestiltskin rushes to get help and manages not to kill anyone in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helping Hands

She didn’t remember who she was. She didn’t remember who he was. She didn’t remember anything. The pirate, if he was still alive after the car had hit him, would pay for this. The driver would, if Rumplestiltskin had anything to say about it, be given riches beyond his dreams. That was for later. All of it was for later. For now he had to make sure she was safe.

He managed, somehow, to get her up and into the car. He could barely walk himself after that tumble to the road but adrenaline was a powerful thing.

“We’ve got to get you to a doctor, sweetheart.” She’d been shot. With his own gun. There was a horrible poetry in that. He had all but put the weapon into the pirate’s hand.

“You’re Mr. Gold,” she said, a flicker of understanding crossing her face.

It hurt, hearing that name from her lips again. She had been the first to know him again here and now she’d forgotten his true name and everything else. It hurt to be called by the name Regina had given him. “Yes.”

“The man...the man who let me out. He told me to find you. And we went to the woods? How did we get here?”

He was breaking all manner of traffic laws, trying to get her as far from the town line and the pirate as possible. He could not have cared less about the law. 

“It’s not important right now. You’re hurt. We’ll find you a doctor.” Victor would help or Victor would lose his arm again. Perhaps a leg as well for good measure. It was as simple as that. 

He could have fixed the wound with magic. He had healed far worse than a simple bullet hole before but this was Belle and if his magic should run wild he would never forgive himself. He was never going to forgive himself as it was. This should never have happened. He should never have allowed this to happen. In any case, in her current state, the use of magic would only frighten her.

“It hurts.” Her voice was barely above a whisper and full of such confusion and pain. 

“We’re almost there. Almost there.” He continued murmuring reassurances as he drove. He reached out for her hand once and she shied away from it. He kept both hands tightly on the wheel after that.

He should have called, he realized, as he pulled the car up in front of the doctor’s residence. He would have been ready then, and waiting. Instead he pounded on the door. “Victor!” The name came out nearly a roar. “Open the door. Now.”

There was no response and he was ready to obliterate the door in front of him when a very timid voice came from behind him. “He’s at the hospital tonight.”

He turned to find a man cringing as if expecting a blow, physical or otherwise. He swore explosively and hurried back to the car.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so very sorry. We’ll go to the hospital.”

Gods help him, though why should they start now, she whimpered at the very mention of the place. 

“You won’t be left alone. I promised. You’ll be protected. And Regina will keep her distance.” At least she would if she wanted to keep her life. 

He wasn’t even aware of parking the car outside the hospital entrance and helping her out. He bellowed at the admitting nurse and continued his tirade until the good doctor appeared.

“She was shot.” He said that calmly enough. “She fell over the town line.” His voice broke then but he continued. “She needs to be taken care of.” Whale, or Frankenstein, however he styled himself these days, hesitated. Rumplestiltskin bared his teeth in response. “You’ll help her. Now. Or I’ll undo my little favor.”

The doctor blanched and ushered them into a room, a nurse trailing behind.

He fumbled with his phone, belatedly realizing calling the sheriff or her father might be useful. 

“There’s a pirate by the town line,” he said flatly into the phone. “Hopefully he’s dead by now. NO I did not kill him. He’ll wish I had. And a driver. From outside. I didn’t stay to look, Miss Swan, I assume he’s still alive and if he is he deserves a medal. No. I don’t. No. I cannot meet you there. The hospital. With Belle. Good evening, Sheriff.”

It wasn’t until he put his phone back in his pocket that he realized her blood was still on his hands. He stared at it, horrified, until Victor nervously stepped in front of him and babbled something about blood loss and rest. He nodded his understanding and lowered himself into the chair at the bedside. He didn’t move until the sheriff and her family arrived to question him.

“He jumped in front of the car,” he said flatly. “I didn’t push him. I was a bit preoccupied.” His gaze drifted to Belle, still asleep in spite of the argument at her feet. 

“He said you beat him.”

“He tried to hurt Belle when she rescued the cricket.” It wasn’t a confirmation and it wasn’t a denial but the sheriff was a clever girl. She understood.

“Gold.” Emma sighed, rubbing a hand across her face. “Just...don’t kill anyone over this. Let me handle it.”

“Oh, I think death is too good for our dear captain, Sheriff. He won’t meet his end at my hands.”

“That’s not even a little comforting.”

The royal family left but the prince returned a moment later.

“Decided I need a babysitter, did you?”

“They think I can appeal to your better nature. Assuming you have one. And I thought you might want the company.”

“She thought I had a better nature,” he said softly, eyes fixed on the woman in the bed. “This is what comes of it.”

**

He did not kill Moe French when the man arrived at the hospital in the early hours of the morning. He just shifted his weight and put both hands on his cane. 

“She’s lost herself,” Rumplestiltskin snarled. “Just as you wished. See for yourself.” Appealing as the thought of caving in the man’s skull was it would only hurt his cause. Watching him suffer, watching as the realization of what had happened sunk in, watching as he realized what fate he had nearly consigned his daughter to, that was almost as satisfying. None of it mattered though. If she’d been lost in the mine she would still be just as lost. All that he had won was a little more time and that time was only hurting him now. Everything was hurting him now.

“I never wanted this,” Moe protested weakly. 

“You’re a liar. What did you think would happen? Her whole life here, 28 years, she spent locked beneath this very building. In a cell. That is all she knows. That is all she remembers. That is what you wanted for her. That is what you wanted for your daughter. Satisfied?” He wasn’t aware he’d taken steps towards the other man until a hand settled on his shoulder and firmly steered him away.

“Don’t,” Charming said warningly. “It’s not worth it. Come on. I’ll buy you a coffee though god knows you don’t need any stimulants right now.”

He let himself be led away towards the hospital coffee machine but the prince didn’t stop.

“Go home, Gold. Take a shower. Eat something that doesn’t come out of a vending machine. I promise you she is not going to be alone.”

“She wasn’t alone at the line,” he snapped. “If I couldn’t help what makes you think you can?”

“Have you met my wife? Or my daughter?” The prince’s smile was pained but genuine. 

“I’ll be back in 30 minutes.”

“I won’t let you in in less than an hour. Now go.”

He was tempted to simply sit just far enough away that the prince would believe him gone. The likelihood that he would be set upon if found out was enough to get him at least to the car and once he was seated in the car it was easy enough to drive to his house. Showering was mindless, automatic. Dressing was the same. He skipped shaving. Shaving meant seeing his face in the mirror and he wanted nothing less than to look himself in the eye.

When he arrived back at the hospital, 58 minutes after he’d left, he found a dwarf waiting for him outside Belle’s room, blocking the door.

“My brother’s like this. Like her,” Grumpy said. “Lost. Thinks he’s a pharmacist with allergies again instead of a dwarf.”

“I assure you, he’s second in line for whatever will fix it. Out of my way.”

“Something will fix it though?” The dwarf was still blocking the doorway. If he didn’t move soon Rumplestiltskin would do something he might eventually come to regret. 

“If I have anything to say about it it will, yes.” He hoped he sounded convincing. If only he could convince himself.

The dwarf gave him a long a searching look before finally nodding and stepping aside. 

The prince, true to his word, was still standing guard inside the room. “Her father left,” he said. “But he’ll be back tomorrow.”

“I won’t kill him,” Rumplestiltskin said tiredly. “I won’t touch him. Just don’t expect me to be civil.”

“I know better than that. I’ll be outside, with Grumpy.” 

Rumplestiltskin nodded and sat down heavily in the chair beside the bed. He wondered, briefly, if the two of them were there to stop him from going out and doing something foolish or to stop others coming in or a combination of the two. They’d brought the pirate in to the hospital last night, and the driver of the car, he knew that. He had no interest in either of them now. There was only one thing that mattered and she was sleeping almost peacefully in the hospital bed. He had watched over her sleep before, in his home in those few shining days after the curse broke and before he proved himself the monster once more. He could guard her rest again now. She looked so fragile there. His Belle wasn’t meant to be fragile. She wasn’t meant to look broken. He would see this fixed. He had to see this fixed. Everything else had to wait until he could be sure she was safe, if not whole. Everything.


End file.
